Curriculum Co-Creation: Knowledge Co-Creation in an Educational Context

Introduction

To enable effective educational management, the process of planning and developing curriculums is important. Therefore, it is important to examine the impact and roles that emerging methods and processes can help to produce more creative and meaningful curriculums, and the means to obtain this result.

For many educators, the tried and true and established methods of designing courses and curriculums have been a bedrock of our education system. Much of the course and curriculum design work is done by the teachers and professors themselves, often in conjunction with peer colleagues and school administration. While feedback generally in the form of course evaluations are frequently solicited from students, they are largely focused on opinions gathered on a previous designed and completed educational “product” in the form of a course, seminar, or workshop.

With the increased attention given to the concept of “knowledge co-creation” where the inputs from various stakeholders are gathered with the goal of producing a better product, service, or educational offering, the role of students providing course and curriculum input has become an intense area of interest.

Thus, the employment of a knowledge co-creation approach to curriculum and course design can help to expand and improve the role that stakeholders, especially students, can play in providing valuable information to educators and administrators. The purpose of this paper is three-fold: to explain what knowledge co-creation of curriculums is and what it can do; to examine the educational theories which address and are related to this area; and to review and categorize the factors impacting on the work being done in this area, followed by a framework from which to evaluate and then to propose fruitful avenues for further research. These are done in the context of reviewing and structuring the relevant research which has been done in this area.